Impractical Advice

We feel the sharp pinpricks of pain whenever we lose anything—our purse, wallet, a favorite photo or an old treasured memento. Losing things is attributed to a lack of attention or (more frighteningly) to the forgetfulness of aging. To prevent losing or misplacing such things as car keys, simply develop a new habit. Routinely keep your car keys in the same place when they are not in use and always place them back there after using them. That’s a way to create a no-lose habit. Another way is to practice being mindful of what you are doing while you are doing it. Sound easy? It isn’t because we typically are distracted. Inattention—being distracted by wandering thoughts—is the most common complaint of those attempting to meditate or pray. Being distracted, however, isn’t a byproduct of praying; it is the mind’s abiding state. The mind is engaged with thoughts of the past or the future, and rarely with the present moment. We are unaware of this endless merry-go-round of thoughts of the mind until we attempt to focus it on one activity, such as praying, meditating or studying. A simple solution to prevent losing things (and having fewer distractions in your prayer) is to do just one thing at a time and bring your full attention to what you’re doing. Simple, yet actually doing it requires gargantuan mental discipline. Perhaps the greatest of all fears is the loss of someone you love. No good habits or spiritual practice can prevent this fear from eventually becoming a reality. One of the wisest sayings of the Galilean Teacher is, “Fear not.” When his advice is applied to our subterranean fear of losing someone deeply loved, it sounds flippantly superficial—yet, it is profoundly true. Helen Keller spoke to its truthfulness when she said, “What we once enjoyed and deeply loved we can never lose, for all that we loved deeply becomes part of us!” To personalize her insight, begin by not limiting yourself to your body. Next take a few moments to gaze at someone you love, seeing her or him not as someone separate from you, but as being intimately united body and soul with you. Then rejoice and do not be afraid, for you cannot lose that with which you are totally one.

Summer Solstice in Our New Neighborhood

Being “indoor” people we can be unaware there is anything unusual about June 20th and that it once was the prehistoric holy day of the summer solstice when the longest day of the year begins at sunrise. In common parlance, sunrise begins a new day, even if officially it occurs at 12:00 a.m. Fascinatingly, the new day once began for Celts, Greeks, Babylonians, Persians and Jews at sunset! To begin a new day at sunset today would require a symbolic somersault since we symbolize light with goodness and life…and darkness with evil and death. Yet to begin a new day at sunset as night’s darkness quickly engulfs earth could be beneficial: It could be daily reminder of your death. The fading of the sun could inspire you to live fully each gifted moment before you are truly embraced by death’s ebony darkness. And while sunrises are full of possibilities (including procrastination) sunsets signal an urgency to settle one’s affairs (including being reconciled), for your day is almost over. Sunrise also reveals the expanse of your “neighborhood.” The paradox of sunset is that instead of shrinking where you live, as twilight lowers its star spangled black curtain speckled with a few sun-stars, it is vastly expanded. Then with telescopic vision we are able to see our astonishing real neighborhood—the Milky Way galaxy with its 200 to 400 billion sun-stars. If our solar system—the sun and eight planets—could fit into a coffee cup, our galaxy would be the size of North America! But we’ve only come to the edge of our home turf, for beyond our galaxy it’s estimated there are 100 billion other galaxies with their immense uncountable number of star-suns. Thirty years ago a team of astronomers proposed that the universe is but only one of possibly billions of universes in our cosmos. If that’s true, then our giant universe has shrunk to truly a neighborhood size! Some 2,200 years ago, a Greek astronomer, Aristarchus of Samos, argued that earth was but one of the planets orbiting around the sun. After all this time, isn’t it curious that we continue to use such flat-earth terms as sunrise and sunset? So have a “Happy Solstice” in hallowed communion with the hundreds of billions, if not trillions, of solstices in the Cosmos.

Were You At the Congress?

In this sharply contested election year political candidates have promised—if elected—to give us $2.50 per gallon gasoline or an unemployment rate as low as 6%, to mention only a few of many campaign assurances. Television viewing is saturated with derogatory advertisements about this or that candidate paid for by super PACs of unknown wealthy donors. Not wishing to be fooled in this pandemonium of voices, who do you believe is telling you the truth?

Along with judging the truthfulness of candidates, we must also deal with competing voices of hundreds of door-to-door salesmen who barge right into our homes through the window—of the television. Their glossy advertisements promising all that the heart desires, like the promises of politicians, can easily deceive us…but no one wants to be a fool! When wise King Solomon said, “The fool believes everything he is told” (Proverbs 14:15), the world’s fools were traumatized because until that time fools were indistinguishable from the wise. This saying of Solomon’s caused a real crisis for the fools of this earth, and so they convened an International Congress of Fools. Hundreds of thousands of fools from all over the world gathered, and after days of heated deliberation they finally accepted this resolution of the Congress: They would not believe anything! So even to this day, whenever people express their disbelief about some political or religious statement, they can be asked, “Really, were you at the Congress?” Blind faith is the belief of a fool. An example of this was a man in a religious dispute who said, "God said it. I believe it. That settles it!" Paradoxically, it is possible to practice blind faith and not be a fool! An example is driving on the highway as cars are coming towards you in the opposite lane at high speeds, and you exercise blind faith these drivers aren’t texting, drunk or high on drugs! Without this kind of blind trust, so severe would be your anxiety that you wouldn’t drive out of your garage. In daily life blind faith is sometimes necessary, but not in politics, advertising or religion.

Acquiring Ears That Hear

The parables of the Teacher of Galilee often conclude with the intriguing words, “Let those with ears hear!” One of the first lessons we learn as a child is how to talk, yet as children, adolescents or adults we were not given lessons in listening! We live in an age of incessant communicating where one wonders how many are truly listening. This blog reflection will offer a few insights into that skill.

Always keep in mind the difference between hearing and listening. Hearing is a natural ability, while listening is an art. As an art, it requires the discipline of creating empty, fertile spaces in conversations so another can speak—and also an empty mind! A vacant mind is one where we cease talking to ourselves by ending that continuous inner-dialogue we carry on within. Our multifaceted mind is capable of doing two or more things at the same time. This ability allows us to appear to be listening, while another part of us is talking-thinking about what to say next, wrestling with some problem or planning a future event.

Being a good listener in a conversation requires first empting yourself of yourself. Yet our prehistoric priority is thinking about ourselves—our personal needs, problems, pains, and comfort. So, we need daily enemas! Our patron for these daily enemas (whom I’ve mentioned previously in my writings) is the French King Louis XIV, who had as many as four enemas a day!

Perhaps four or more enemas a day may be needed for those who live under the same roof where the rule of thumb is, “The more familiar the speaker, the greater the effort to truly listen to him or her.” In all listening, good listeners use their “third” ear to strive to hear what is unspoken…and what is being spoken in code.

When the Teacher said, “Let those with ears hear,” he implied a listening that understood what had been said. Each of us longs to be heard, to be understood and therefore accepted. In conclusion, let us discipline ourselves to speak less and listen more to one another—and to God.

Edward Hays

Haysian haphazard thoughts on theinvisible and visible mysteries of life.